Members of the Baseball Life Facebook Group sound off on yours truly, Steve Contursi, regarding the article below. Rough going, but ultimately rewarding…

You write something hoping it resonates with readers. Not in the sense, they’ll hit the “Like” button a hundred times, but more with the idea that you’ve stimulated a reader to react (agree or disagree) to the content.

You’ll find the backbone and more detail of what I’m saying in my replies below. But here’s an exchange that took place between members of the Baseball Life Facebook Group yesterday that stimulated me.

You’ll note the exchange starts off terse and rough on both sides. Gradually, it ascends into a healthy discussion ranging far and wide, becoming an intense learning experiment, again on both sides (my opinion).

All comments appear as written with no edits by me. The original article appears first if you wish to put things in context.

If time allows, please add your thoughts as a comment on this page, as opposed to your Facebook Group page. This, to keep the dialog going…

Sean Connor Flannery You’re beyond help and all you do is dump your heavily opinionated and barely coherent articles to like 27 groups on Facebook(sadly I’m a part of several) to get some clicks without ever contributing to those groups outside of using them as a dumping ground for your hack job articles

Henry Maldonado Jr.Steve Contursi I think the issues that some have with your articles is you don’t like feedback. Additionally, on several occasions, several members have pointed out numerous inaccuracies that go un-acknowledged by you.Perhaps you don’t realize it (doubt it) but you have a heavy anti-Met centric tone in most of your articles regarding the Mets.

This group has a very strong core of knowledgeable and passionate Met fans and I’d implore you to pick their brain on future write-ups. Just a suggestion.

Steve Contursi Henry Maldonado Jr. Joey SaldanaSean Connor Flannery – now you’re talking. That’s called constructive criticism, and contrary to what you think, I don’t get feedback of this type often. I do, however, make every effort to correct errors when they are pointed out as a comment.

Recognizing that I am not a polished journalist, nearly everyone is nice about it and the correction is made. As you may realize, I go for content – and ideas – as opposed to writing a research paper. For example, in today’s article, would you agree that Syndergaard, much like the other flaming star Matt Harvey, has been a big pain in the ass for the Mets (Examples cited in the article)? And with that, maybe it’s time for both sides to part ways as the Mets (finally) did with Mr. Harvey, who as we know no longer has a job in the big leagues.

Now, if the ADMIN or any of you think I’m a detriment to the Group, I will bow out. I mean no harm. This is just a hobby – there is no profit, and in fact, it costs me between $500-1,000 a year to keep Reflections on Baseball up and running. That’s my choice. The other thing that strikes me and leads me closer to think I’m knocking on the wrong door here is that I write almost exclusively about the Yankees and Mets – Baseball Life has more general interests within MLB. Thus, a reader who believes the Yankees suck will also think I suck. Anyway, it’s almost game time here in New York. Be well. Enjoyed the dialog.

Sean Connor Flannery Except the only people that make him appear to be a “pain in the ass” are writers. I can appreciate this being a hobby that you spend your hard earned money on to keep going but it just feels like you read other headlines then write your feelings on those headlines without really researching the topics at hand.Noah’s non-MRI wouldn’t have helped anything, team was worried about his elbow, he hurt his back. Noah complained about the exhibition in Syracuse because it was a farce to put players through that mere hours before opening day and from what I’ve read was speaking on behalf of most of the team. That didn’t stop him from being a professional and flying the Syracuse flag around to hype up the crowd and still participating in the drills.Noah is comparable to Harvey yes, but they are very much different. Matt secluded himself, Noah has done the opposite of that. He believes in his teammates (hence his support for Jake during his contract negotiation), believes in the team and most importantly has fun with the team and his role in it (the whole Syndergaard fighting Mr Met over Mrs Met’s affection). And for all the crap and grief I’ve given you over your articles if you ever have a question or want some research done on a player whether just a story or on some analytics or whatever I’d be glad to help.…

Steve Contursi I forgot to mention one thing. One thing you don’t see (but I do) are all the like attached to my stories. Obviously not from Baseball Life, but from others we all belong to. I don’t attach much weight to “Likes and Loves”. I believe they mostly come from readers who don’t read the content. They see the title and the blurb – and say – Huh, I kinda agree with that – hit the like button and move on. It gets complicated. I’d rather just write…

Once again, my thanks go to all contributors for today’s article. Also, please note today’s feature image at the top of this page is borrowed from the Baseball Life Facebook page.

4 thoughts on “Facebook Readers Sound Off On Me And A Healthy Exchange Occurs”

New York is a tough place to play. Not only are there countless, er, distractions at every hour, but the media attention is probably more intense than anywhere else in the league. And the fan bases? Much more rabid than anywhere else, and there are more of us. I remember there being a block wide poster of Dwight Gooden pitching a fastball across the entire width of Penn Station back in 1985. In order to get to your train, you had to walk between Doc’s legs — each one the size of a parking garage pylon. And Doc was only 19 or something. How does a mere teenager handle that kind of attention? Turned out that he probably couldn’t. Not everyone can handle the pros and cons that come from playing in New York. Some thrive in being in the spotlight, i.e, Reggie Jackson, Tom Seaver. Others, need to play somewhere else, i.e. Jason Bay, Danny Tartabull. The trick is being able to acquire players from the former and get rid of players from the latter. Trouble is that you can never know. So I try not to worry about it too much.

Interesting. Love the examples you provide. I’m a fan of baseball, but I guess by writing and posting it’s easy to get lumped in with the media. Without objection, I am adding your thoughts to the story later today.

So Steve just like you we all love the game and are passionate about our team. The problem with this is the NY MEDIA is full of 1 sided assholes that will write their opinion no matter what. They ask the same questions looking for different answers or try to bend the answers they get. Bal players are human beings just like you and i. If we’re have a bad day at work we’re might get pissed and now of steam about it with our friends or family. If the ball players have a bad day at work their expected to talk about our worth the media right after it happens. I know this is what is expected of them but just maybe we should change those expectations. Let the manager talk to the media and the next day before games the players can talk to the media. Just maybe then you can fully understand how personal and emotional players get over the good, the bad and the ugly.

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